


so come with me, i'll buy you a raincoat

by tinydragon (tiny_dragon)



Series: every moon and blinking sun [6]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 09:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13587636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiny_dragon/pseuds/tinydragon
Summary: in which nico meets naomi solace for the first time





	so come with me, i'll buy you a raincoat

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello! here is another fic. i might continue this as a lil chaptered thing of nico staying with will for the first time, so let me know if you'd like me to do that!

Nico is afraid.

“You don’t need to be nervous,” Will says. “They’re gonna love you.”

“Not necessarily,” Nico argues.

A lot of people at camp like him now. It started out with the Apollo cabin inviting him to sit with them and then morphed into people asking him for duelling tips. He did a couple of shifts at the infirmary where he helped Will with various things, passing around medical tools and giving lollipops to the younger campers.

It’s a gradual thing, changing pre-existing perceptions. When you’ve been long known as the creepy kid, death kid, the weird boy who can summon the dead, it can be strange, throwing away those names. Making people look at you and for the first time seeing someone else.

Things are better now, though.

There’s the odd person – some kid who kept snickering even when that had become decisively _not cool_ , trying to hold on to those old nicknames – but they don’t matter. They fade into the background, white noise. Not needed.

Nico doesn’t need to listen to them anymore.

… Though if they get really shitty, he’s not above making a skeleton hand pop up out of the grass. He’s petty, okay, and if you’ve got moves you might as well show them, right?

So, people here like him – there are friends, and now he has family, and he’s still pretty welcome down in the underworld which he’s pretty sure is something that few can attest to.

But people haven’t always liked him. He’s acutely aware of that. And a problem that comes with years of teasing and ostracization and loneliness is that you never stop expecting those feelings to pop up again, to engulf and surround you. Loneliness leaves a mark that scars for years and so no matter how many people choose to stay there will always be this threat, a shadow that hangs over, something saying: but what if they leave?

And so. Going to Will’s childhood home, meeting his parents for the first time – he’d met Apollo obviously, but he’s just about the easiest person you could possibly impress, throw him a rhyme and he’ll write a ballad in your name – it’s scary. Will loves his family, and if they don’t like him, then where does that leave them?

“Of course they will,” Will protests. “I lo… I like you. So they’ll like you too. That’s how these things work.”

“Plenty of people don’t like me,” Nico reminds him, but it’s more just out of pettiness. “Like Zeus.”

Thunder clap.

Will scoffs. “Zeus doesn’t like _anyone_.”

A second thunder clap.

“Not true. Zeus likes hot mortal women he can impregnate.”

Will glares at Nico as the rain starts to pour.

“Great,” he sighs. “Now we’ve started a storm.”

Nico grins. “Worth it.”

 It definitely is. And for a second it takes his mind off the Impending Doom that lies ahead – also known as Will’s mom waiting at the other end of the airport terminal. It would have been easier to shadow travel, but for once in his life Nico had agreed that it’s maybe not the best idea. Not for the same reason that Will would protest of course. He’s in fine shape to whisk them both of to Texas, but he feels like that kind of appearance wouldn’t make for the best first impression.

Not that he mentioned that part to Will.

Will Solace though, is painfully observant – so when the smile drops off of the end of Nico’s face he immediately picks up on it and reaches out to clasp Nico’s hands, to twine his fingers in with his own.

“Your palms are sweaty,” Will comments. “Gross.”

“Knees weak, arms are heavy,” Nico finishes automatically. “Hey, it seems like your pop culture lessons are rubbing off on me.”

Will grins. “They really are,” he says. “We’ll make an Eminem fan outta you yet.”

“You don’t even like Eminem.”

“…Not the point.”

“But seriously,” Will tells him. “You really don’t need to be nervous.”

“I am, though,” Nico replies, and for that, he gets a quick squeeze of his palm, gentle and soft.

Gods, does he love holding hands with Will Solace. It’s so dumb and so lame, and so not into this kind of thing. He loves to spar! To duel! To go on adventures and turn monsters to dust! And save the world and rule all of the ghosts and summon the dead!

He does, yeah. Apparently he also loves holding hands and watching really bad movies and kissing lame blonde boys who can’t duel to save their lives.

“I know,” Will tells him. “I know I can’t really stop you being nervous, either. I mean, when I meet your dad I’m gonna be terrified…”

“He’s the Lord of the Underworld, Will.”

“Exactly! My mom can’t exactly imprison your soul to the netherworld!”

Nico snorts. “Probably for the best.”

“Probably,” Will agrees, thoughtfully.

A small silence. They are coming up to the end of their walk. Soon, they will be at the end of the gate, ready to meet Naomi Solace and her husband, Will’s step-dad. Will’s _family_. The people who raised him and made him smart and kind and caring.

And then Will halts him. He pulls Nico by the hand across the way, outside of the constant stream of people into a corner that’s a little less crowded.

“Hey,” he says. “Look at me.”

Nico looks up at that, raises big brown eyes and he thinks: I really, really, really don’t want to fuck this up.

“Looking at you,” Nico tells him, and Will smiles.

“Noted,” he says. He reaches out and takes Nico’s other hand.

Holding hands with someone is great. Holding both of their hands is even better, even if it makes him feel a bit like he’s in a romance book.

Hey, maybe this is just an especially messed up Greek one. Who knows?

“I know I can’t stop you being nervous, but you’re amazing. Really – you’re great and you make me laugh and feel happy and for that alone my mom will love you. She’s not particularly picky – she fell for Apollo! – but anyone who makes me happy she tends to have a cool thing for. S’why she doesn’t like Apollo as much as she used to these days…”

At that, Nico squeezes Will’s hands gently.

“…So you don’t have to worry. You really don’t have to. She’ll love you, like I – as much as I like you – and it’ll all be fine. And if she doesn’t, which she _won’t by the way_ it doesn’t matter anyway, because she’s my mom, not my keeper, and she doesn’t get to decide who I spend time with.”

All of his words come out in a bit of a mad rush. Nico’s a bit impressed with the rate he manages to spit them all out without tripping over his sentence. Will pauses for maybe half a minute and then he says, “so yeah.”

“Nice finish,” Nico says.

Will grins, and takes a mock bow.

Nico smiles too – it’s kind of disgusting, he can literally feel his face soften, who is he? – and he reaches in to give Will a tiny hug, face burying into his shoulder.

“Thank you,” he says. “I just don’t want to mess this up.”

“You won’t,” Will promises, his voice very quiet.

Nico moves his head upwards and before he can pull back, Will leans in and catches his lips. It’s not a long kiss, not something really showy or intense, because he knows that Nico hates that kind of PDA. It’s just small and sweet and it lasts a couple of seconds but it is nice and it’s close and it’s reassuring.

That kind of closeness, that says I’m here, I’m with you – that means stuff, means words they’re not around to saying just yet.

When Will moves back and away, he keeps one of his hands brushing against Nico’s cheek for a second. To keep him close. Keep them close, anchored together.

Nico nods, fiercely and decisively.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

Will grins and they detach, only to reattach at the waist by joining their hands together and letting their wrists swing by a little.

See: Nico hates PDA. But handholding isn’t PDA. It’s just closeness and it’s nice.

(It’s still scary, being out – being out and in front of people and letting them see the two of them together like this. But fuck it. If someone says anything, he can raise the dead, can’t he?)

So they finish their walk through the terminal, and cross through into the other side of the airport. There’s a woman waiting, who looks a lot like Will, with curly blonde hair and freckles and kind blue eyes. When she sees them, her face lights up and she beams at the two of them.

“Will!” she shouts. “Nico, hi!”

“Mom!” Will’s beaming, and he doesn’t let go of Nico’s hand, but they move up the way faster after that. He only lets go of Nico to fling his arms around his mom’s neck. And after that, as if in a heartbeat, Naomi Solace is beaming at him and reaching in to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, too.

“You must be Nico,” she says. “It’s so good to meet you.”

“It’s great to meet you too, Mrs Solace,” Nico says. He’s still a bit nervous – heart bumping and thumping – but he’s relaxed, mostly. He feels the tension slipping out of his muscles, the rate of his chest thrumming start to slow down.

Will’s mom gives him this blinding bright smile, as Will’s hand slips back into Nico’s own, and says, “please, call me Naomi.”

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: willandlyra


End file.
